A tiny company called Stephenson’s Warmlite makes some of the world’s best gear for camping. I’ve long admired their bomb-proof tents and burly sleeping bags, not to mention the unabashed, straight-from-the-70s nudism in their vintage paper catalogs [a PDF is available here, for now]. Which is why I couldn’t help but be deeply charmed by the mention of Stephenson’s in this old Popular Science article about bike camping.

From the April 1972 edition of Popular Science — available in Google Books!

I wonder how many earnest, science-minded readers sent away for a Stephenson’s catalog? Total Internet awesomeness, anyway.

I tend to obsess over outdoors gear. The pinnacle (or nadir, as the case may be) of this obsession was the spring/summer of 2001, when I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. Over four months, I sampled a ton of gear — six pairs of shoes, a few different shirts, jackets, socks, shelters, cookware. I had dozens (maybe hundreds) of conversations about this stuff, spent hours discussing the various qualities that distinguished some little piece of backpacking equipment or apparel as the lightest, strongest, driest, most comfortable, most long-lasting, most whatever.

What did I take away from these discussions? Two things: (1) At some point, rational evaluation becomes religious debate. Gear nerds have deep, complicated relationships with their hardware, and we have a hard time remaining level-headed about the stuff saves our butt during a thunderstorm, or keeps us consistently comfortable as temperatures change. And, (2), for me, Patagonia apparel lasted longer, bounced back better, fit better, dealt with rain better, and just generally worked better than the other stuff I tried. Others poo-poo-ed it as “Pata-gucci.” Froofy, high-end couture posing as outdoor gear, i.e. stuff that “real thru-hikers” wouldn’t be caught dead in.

All of this is good and well, but I recently came across another excellent aspect of it. (And I still wear it).

Called the Footprint Chronicles, they’re a series of detailed accounts of how individual pieces of their gear are made — where the material is sourced, how fair labor practices are ensured, how the garment is assembled.

This example takes you through the design and construction of the Nano Puff Pullover, made from recycled polyester.

This is a different kind of marketing, clearly: Documentary accounts that highlight the qualities of the company, rather than the performance of the gear. I’d be interested to know how (or if) they measure the return on investment of this kind of thing.

Thomas McGuane takes a shot at describing what it’s like to land a tarpon:

The closest thing to a tarpon in the material world is the Steinway piano. The tarpon, of course, is a game fish that runs to extreme sizes, while the Steinway piano is merely an enormous musical instrument, largely wooden and manipulated by a series of keys. However, the tarpon when hooked and running reminds the angler of a piano sliding down a precipitous incline and while jumping makes cavities and explosions in the water not unlike a series of pianos falling from a great height. If the reader, then, can speculate in terms of pianos that herd and pursue mullet and are themselves shaped like exaggerated herrings, he will be a very long way toward seeing what kind of thing a tarpon is. Those who appreciate nature as we find her may rest in the knowledge that no amount of modification can substitute the man-made piano for the real thing—the tarpon. Where was I?

I came across this in The Best American Sports Writing of the Century, an absolutely killer collection edited by David Halberstam, but you can check it out in the SI Vault: “The Longest Silence,” by Thomas McGuane.

This photo is from an excellent 70s photo book called Handmade Houses. I bought it after I read this inspiring little piece on Inhabitat, and it has got me thinking about getting back to basics. In this economy, basics may be all there are.

In the winter and spring of 1997, I helped my friend Steve make a house by hand on the California coast. At first, it was like Robinson Crusoe. No possessions to speak of, other than my hammer, some books, the sun and ocean, fresh air and work. We worked all day, doing what felt like good, wholesome labor in the sun, banging, sawing, sizing things up.

This is where I lived for a while.

Then El Nino arrived. After a few weeks, the whole thing had become more like Lord of the Flies. Days and days of rain, mudslides on Highway 1, crazy-making isolation. In between squalls, we framed the house, affixed the plywood sheathing, put on the deck and roof, and ran the wiring. At some point, I came down with a cold, which eventually became pneumonia.

In the spring, I retreated to the warmth of Doug and Ted’s house in Berkeley to recuperate, a few weeks later I’d taken a job at a museum, and that was the end of simplicity. For the time being, anyway.

Sarah brought over an excellent old book called The Trees of California, by Willis Linn Jepson. It was published in 1909, and it had some amazing photos of the redwoods up north.

The caption reads: “Fig 15. REDWOOD (Sequoia sempervirens Endl.) Making the “undercut”, which determines the direction of the fall, on a tree 16 feet in diameter. Humboldt woods.” Photo: A.W. Ericson.

Amazon sells Trees of California for $75, but you can read it for free at Google Books. Cool.

Last Friday, we improvised a parlor game during a visit to Sarah’s parents’ East Bay homestead. They’ve got tons of books on California history, including a gem called California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names by one Erwin Gudde, a Cal professor and friend of Sarah’s fam. There wasn’t much “game” to the game; someone shouted out a city or county or river name, and then we all offered theories about its origin before flipping to its entry in the book and reading aloud.

A sample. Yosemite:

From the Southern Sierra Miwok yohhe’ meti or yosse’ meti [meaning] “they are killers,” derived from yoohu– [meaning] “to kill,” evidently a name given to the Indians of the valley by those outside it ... Edwin Sherman claimed discovery of the valley in the spring of 1850, naming it “The Devil’s Cellar.” In March of 1851, it was entered by the Mariposa Battalion and named at the suggestion of LH Bunnell: “I then proposed that we give the valley the name of Yo-sem-i-ty, as it was suggestive, euphonious, and certainly American; that by so doing, the name of the tribe of Indians which we met leaving their homes in this valley, perhaps never to return, would be perpetuated.”

There’s so much information in here that it’s hard to know where to start, but (1) Yes, majestic wilderness should be called things like “they are killers.” This should be a requirement for any place that is rugged and majestic and awe-inspiring. What words can match landscapes like these? Those that involve violent death, for starters. (2) I can guess at why were the Indians leaving, “perhaps never to return,” but this seems like a detail that should be, say, expanded. (3) The “y” at the end, for my money, makes more sense. It was replaced by an “e” in 1852 by a Lt. Tredwell Moore. No explanation is given as to why; the implication is, why not? More on Yosemite here, but the whole book is pretty great.

I stumbled upon a treasure trove of old outdoors books at Iconoclast Books in Ketchum, Idaho this weekend; this one’s from 1970.

The cover ultimately doesn’t make much difference, but I like this one.

If only hiking through sun cups like these was as serene and lovely as the photo implies. Also, the introductory text instructs Yosemite visitors, “DO NOT FEED, TEASE OR MOLEST THE BEARS.” Noted.

The page layout is classy, and the book is simple to navigate — each set of facing pages describes one hike. Also, the map is intended as a thumbnail overview, not as the actual guide for use during the hike. (In 1970, maps could be acquired by sending $0.50 to the USGS.)

How do you know which map to purchase from the USGS for $0.50? The relevant USGS map ID information is in the top left corner of each page! Each hike has a summary that contains all the important stuff — distance, elevation change, estimated time, and so on, ordered from most broad (and important) to most specific.

When I start a camping trip, the Van Halen song “Panama” [Video on YouTube] often pops into my head — I wish I could represent Eddie Van Halen’s reverby guitar opening in words, but I was humming it and singing the chorus — Pa-neh-ma ... Pa-neh-ma-ha — as this picture was taken. That’s the Wind River Range coming into view beyond my friend Nick. For the next 10 days, it would dominate us. In fact, this photo represents the last few moments of peaceful hiking. Our packs were really, really heavy, and soon enough the hurt would begin. Then, we would get rained on pretty often, and (for my part) suffer too many black fly bites and a few altitude-related headaches. Still, totally, totally worth it.

I could go on and on here, but my pictures on Flickr really tell the story better than I can.

I’m a shameless sucker for gear, so here’s some shout-outs:

• Bridgedale socks. They were really wet, really often. But they stayed warm and they maintained some spring, even when soaked.
• Tarptent. I visited Tarptent designer Henry Shires at his house on the Peninsula, and I bought the Squall [PDF] last spring. Since then, I’ve put it to the test in the Gila Wilderness, Yosemite, and the Yuba River. I was still skeptical about its ability to really keep me warm and dry, but I must testify that, even when it rains hard all afternoon (and even when the rain really comes down), the Tarptent abides. Everything people say is true: It’s a really good, reasonably light backpacking shelter, and it’s got everything you need to anchor and adjust it to respond to changing weather and wind.
• Blistoban. Part of the reason for the shout-out to Bridgedale was that, halfway through, I switched to thinner Smartwool socks, and they absolutely killed my feet in the matter of a couple of hours. Nick loaned me some Blistoban strips, though, and they ruled. How does Blistoban compare to my old backpacking blister-control remedy: antibiotic ointment covered by bandaid which is then covered by duct tape which is then smeared with Vaseline? Jury’s still out here.
• Patagonia Dragonfly. They call it the Houdini now, and it’s a little different, but I bought one of the early models in 2003, and it still impresses me. I wore it almost everyday, and it admirably repelled rain without ever becoming oppressively warm.

I’m usually the person who recommends going anywhere but Yosemite in the Sierras because it’s expensive and tends to be over-run with people even in the high country, whereas the Emigrant Wilderness, for instance, tends to be pretty sparsely visited, even on the busiest of weekends. But let’s keep that on the shhhh. Anyway, I spent 3 warm, sunny days in Yosemite last week with my good friend and all-around good guy Andrew Goodman.

We had nice weather, went to popular places (North Dome, Yosemite Falls — which has its own Wikipedia page), and yet saw very few other people. Maybe it’s the time of year, or the fact that it was a low-snow year, or both? Or our route? We hiked down to North Dome on the Porcupine Creek Trail, and then got back to 120 via the Yosemite Creek trail (where, incidentally, we took some excellent swims). Whatever contributed to it, I’ve now seen the good side of Yosemite.

Yosemite Valley from North Dome, rendered via the magic of Autostitch. It assembled 25 or so photos from my Motorola SLVR into a pretty complete panorama, and even the artifacts — moving clouds and ghosted edges — seem to make the result more compelling, I think.

Yosemite Valley is an incredible place, especially when seen from a place above the Valley, like North Dome or the outcropping above Yosemite Falls. If you want a glimpse at the Valley was like when people were putting up the first routes on El Cap, check out Glen Denny’s photo book, Yosemite in the Sixties. It’s really nicely produced and filled with amazing black-and-white images of simpler times and the legends who started it all — Yvon Chouinard, Warren Harding, Royal Robbins, Galen Rowell, and many more.

During my hike on the PCT in 2001, my two favorite pastimes were swimming and eating. When I was walking — which was most of the time — cool swimming holes and sizzling cheeseburgers filled my daydreams. When my hiking partner, Nick, and I talked, it was more often than not about swimming and eating cheeseburgers: How far to the next river, creek or lake? How long would it take to hitch out to get a cheeseburger at the next road crossing?

As the two attached lists indicate, we found lots of chances to follow these particularly blissful pastimes. Cheeseburger-wise, the best were found in the Cheeseburger Belt, which begins as the Sierras give way to the Cascades in northern California, and ends a little north of Ashland, Oregon. The best of the best in the belt were found at Buck’s Lake Lodge near Quincy, the Pines Frosty in Chester (which also has kick-ass shakes), and Lake of the Woods Resort north of Ashland. At the bottom of the list was Belden Town, which shouldn’t really be surprising since they don’t seem to like hikers too much anyway.

The best of the swimming was between in northern California, between Sierra City and Etna. The Middle Fork of the Feather (pictured below) was spectacular, though Nick preferred Squaw Valley Creek, which he found a little cozier.

Five years ago today, I was hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail. I spent the summer of 2001 hiking through California, Oregon, and Washington; on the 12th of August, I was chilling out at Crater Lake, Oregon.

Crater Lake had been a really major destination for me, not because of its legendary, otherworldly beauty or because I’d never seen it or because I was looking forward to bumming beers off retirees in RVs, but BECAUSE I was having a new pair of shoes delivered to the PO there. My feet, at that point, were thrashed. The trail can be unkind to feet in a variety of ways — extreme heat in the south, frequent river crossings and snow in the Sierras — and it doesn’t help when you wear one pair of Asics Gel Trabuco III’s for the last two-thirds of the state of California.

I take a look at my PCT journal a few times every summer; the entry scanned above represents some of the happier times on the trail. A little earlier in my hike, the heat and drudgery of Northern California would have figured more prominently. The words “heat rash” would have appeared, and I also would have mentioned the fact that my girlfriend was breaking up with me. Later in the hike, my hiking partner, Nick Brown, broke his ankle and some religious zealots crashed commercial airplanes into American landmarks.

Reading over it now, August 12, 2001 represents a distant little period of serenity and calm. My days were pretty simple: How far should I hike today? Where will I get water? Should I stop and take a swim while I’m there? When should I eat my next snack? Should I take this alternate route? Should I stop early? Should I night-hike? Where will I get my next cheeseburger? It amazes me that it ever could be so easy ... The picture below was taken a few days before.